by Jo Clayton
The leader danced his mount closer to Serroi. “Green,” he said, then laughed, the sound like music above the clatter of the nervous rambut’s hooves. “The boy has green skin.” The snickers of the other four sounding behind him, he twitched the rambut two steps sideways. “And a fat man. A little fat man full of juice.” He giggled and prodded at Hern’s shoulder with the ball of needles, their points sliding easily through the black cloth to pierce the flesh beneath. Hern sat without moving, without even a wince, his eyes fixed on the cobbles.
The minark looked at the blood on the spikes, smiled sweetly. “Little fat man’s so stupid he can’t feel.” The look in his eyes heated to a glare, his playfulness changing to rage as if he sensed the pride and strength behind Hern’s unimpressive exterior. He rode his rage with a light hand, taunting Hern, jeering at him, punctuating the jeers with passes of the needle ball. Small cuts opened on Hern’s hands and face, trickles of blood crept through his tunic and trousers, though he sat stolidly until the highborn started swiping at his eyes. Even when the ball danced in front of his face, though he was pale with fury and frustration, Hern kept himself under control, moving just enough to save his eyes.
The other four were beginning to get bored. They milled back and forth past the intent pair, hooting and yipping. They sniped verbally at Serroi, teased at her hair with their needle balls, but otherwise left her alone. She belonged to their leader, his prey after Hern. He must be Falam’s kin at least, a son maybe, she thought. Highest of the high. Maddest of the mad. He’s going to kill Hern. No way we can make it to the Port. Have to get out of here. She closed her eyes and fumbled for the rambuts; the beasts were strange to her and slippery, a little mad like their riders. She couldn’t read them well enough, was taking a long time to control them, too long.
The minark raked the needle ball down the side of Hern’s face, laying it open to the bone. With a roar, Hern snatched the rod away, his strength waking a spark of fear in the minark’s golden eyes, flipped it over and used the butt of the rod to punch the youth in the stomach, driving him backwards off the rambut, spilling him into a particularly evil-smelling section of gutter.
As he splashed down with a shirek of mindless rage, Serroi finally got the hold she wanted and sent the rambuts stampeding toward the gate. “Hern, this way,” she yelled and kicked her macai into a plunging run after the beasts and their struggling riders. Hern bent low over the neck of his mount and followed after, laughing with satisfaction and derision at the minark youth, stained and filthy, cursing, slipping, clawing his way out of the gutter.
The guards were beginning to close the ironwood gates for the night, but fell back before the wild panic of the rambuts and their near helpless riders, recognizing their status even if they didn’t know their faces. Serroi and Hern bowled through the gap before the guards could react. As soon as they were across the bridge, Serroi swerved to one side so Hern wouldn’t plow into her and pulled up. She closed her eyes again and stabbed deeper into the rambuts. They began bucking and sunfishing, rearing and flinging themselves into reckless leaps, went to their knees, rolled with abandon until they were free of their riders. Leaving the minark youths groaning on the grass, they ran wildly across the pasture land plunging through several herds, scattering the hauhaus and rambuts there into terrified flight. Drained by her outreach, swaying in the saddle, Serroi let her control fade.
Hern edged his macai closer, caught her as she almost fell. “Very nice. What now?”
Serroi scratched delicately along the periphery of her eyespot, trying to get her weary mind to think. “Back,” she said finally. “The Sleykyn road. East.”
“You all right?”
“Will be. I can stick in the saddle.”
“They chase after us?” He twisted around, clicked his tongue against his palate as he saw one of the guards running toward a draggled screaming figure limping over the cobbles and pointing a shaking finger at the pair sitting their macai beyond the bridge. “That answers that.” He kicked his macai into an easy lope. Serroi settled herself more comfortably in the saddle and sent her macai loping after him, frowning as she wondered how much the beasts had left in them after a full day’s riding.
They were some distance down the side road when she heard the alarum gong ringing out over the valley. “What else?” she muttered. Nijilic TheDom was a handspan above the eastern mountains, flooding the plantings on the left and the pastures on the right with shimmering white light though he was several days past his prime, a light she could have easily done without because it silhouetted them far too clearly against the pale earth of the rutted road.
“What’s that for?”
“The gong? That’s to warn the pass guards to watch for us and stop us.”
He looked across the fields to the towers. “They’ve got a good view.” Still looking back, he grunted with disgust. “Armored troop riding out.” He swung around. “They want us bad. Me.”
She made a face. “The one you ducked in that muck most likely is the favorite son of the Falam, or close to that. Not your fault,” she added hastily. “Nothing else you or I could’ve done. Bad luck, that’s all.” She shifted position, stretched carefully. “I could sleep for a week. How’s your face?”
“Sore.” After a minute he said softly, “I’d like to have that little bastard for just five minutes.”
“He’s probably warped enough to enjoy a bit of beating.”
With a bark of laughter he ran a hand through his hair, “Right again, meie.”
“Right, hunh!”
The land began to rise. The mountains ahead were worn, their contours rounded as if their substance had been eaten by time. Sounds floated along the road, carried on the east wind that rustled in the grass and tugged at their hair, sounds of hooves on paving bricks, the clatter of armor. The turnoff was hidden by a gentle swell of the ground but she knew the minarka were close behind and getting closer by the minute—and they couldn’t push the macai harder without running them into the ground.
Hern bent forward and patted his laboring mount on the shoulder, murmured encouragement to the tired beast. When he straightened, he said, “We going somewhere or just running?”
“Both. First we’ve got to get out of the Vale.” She paused. “Next, we’ve still got to get across the Sinadeen. That means Shinka-on-the-Neck, since Skup is now thoroughly closed to us.”
“Shinka.” He said it like a curse. “An extra passage at least.”
“Looks like.”
“Pass guards. How many? How good are they?”
“Four. Sweepings. Punishment detail. Not really guards, more like sentries, watching for Sleykyn raiding parties. They’ve got a gong too.”
“Sleykyn. Maiden’s tits, Serroi.”
“Yah. I know.” She yawned, swayed in the saddle again, the ground ahead blurring, swinging, blurring again.
Hern caught hold of her halter and pulled her macai to a stop. Ignoring her protest, he untied his water skin and filled a cup, then threw the water in her face. She gasped. He filled the cup again and handed it to her. “Drink this.” He watched her gulp the water down. “You got anything in that magic belt that will wake you up? You’re about out on your feet.” He grinned. “Or seat in this case.”
Serroi rested the cup on the saddle ledge, her fingers searching along the belt for the pocket with the waxy green buttons that gave her energy but exacted a high price in return. She chewed a button, swallowed, washed away the bitter taste with the rest of the water and handed him the cup. “Thanks.”
“Self defense. I want you bright and awake when those bastards come over a hill at us.”
She wrinkled her nose. “And I was beginning to think you liked me.”
The land began to roll more steeply upward toward the ancient mountains; her head began to roll with it. The plantings on the left stopped and there were no more farms, only the hills and knee-length moon-silvered grass with scattered herds of hauhaus, rambuts, woolly linats. They pulsed,
growing and shrinking, flicking in and out, visible at the corner of her eyes, gone when she looked directly at them, there when she looked at them, rippling into nothing when she looked away, until she couldn’t be certain the herds were really there. It was the drug, she knew, it didn’t sit well on an empty stomach. She looked back as she topped one of the hills and saw the band of armored men topping a hill a lot farther behind than she’d expected. She brought her macai to a stop and sat gazing back at them, watching them waver and shift, ballooning into transparent giants, shrinking again.
Hern’s voice sounded suddenly at her ear. “The fools, they’ve overridden those beasts. Look at them wobble.” He stroked his macai’s neck, chuckling at the beast’s groan of pleasure. “Give me a macai any day. Rambuts are all flash and no stay.”
The moonlight caught a breastplate and flashed fire at her. She winced, gave a sharp, frightened gasp. White fire from halberds and helmets stabbed at her. She squeezed her eyes shut, opened them, saw nothing at all on the hill and gasped again.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing there. All gone.” Forgetting about the mirage on the hill—maybe a mirage, Hern saw them too—she stared at his face, at the savagely torn cheek, dried blood black in the moons’ light. “Let me fix that.”
He touched his cheek and winced. “Must be a sight to frighten children.” He turned his mount and started down the slight slope toward the next and steeper ascent.
Serroi caught up with him. “No,” she said. The word was a black bubble. She blinked at it. “No,” she said experimentally, giggled at the drifting black bubble. “No. No. No.” The bubbles danced in front of her, went pop! pop! pop! She blinked again and tried to concentrate, having momentarily forgotten what she’d been talking about. “No, you won’t scar if I can just tend to your face. I’m good at tending. The Silent Ones, they wanted me to learn healing. My gift, don’t deny your gift, only brings trouble, besides you’re too little to be a meie. Little. Skinny. Green. Be a nice little healer. Magic. Too much magic in it. Too much like the Noris. No. I’m going to be a meie. Sword and bow and fist. Real things. No magic. Not ever. No and no and no.” She giggled again. “I’m stubborn.”
“You’re also flying high. Can you hear me, Serroi?”
“Uh-huh.”
“No time for tending now, we have to get through the pass.”
“Uh-huh.”
“How long you going to be like this?”
Serroi blinked slowly, spoke even more slowly. “Because no food, I mean Tarr on empty stomach, works too hard. Too fast.” She pressed her hand against her eyes. “Don’t know.”
“Hold up.” Hand still on her eyes she heard him breathing hard close to her, felt a tugging on her gear. She would have protested but it didn’t seem worth the effort. A moment later a strong hand pulled hers down from her eyes, put a trail bar in it. “Eat that.”
She was still nibbling on the bar when they rode into the trees and began the climb to the pass.
High on a mountain slope, stopping a moment to rest her mount, Serroi looked back. “Hern!”
“What is it?”
“Look. They must have switched mounts.” The minarka were coming fast out of the band of trees, riding up the steep grade almost at a gallop. “I wasn’t dreaming the herds on the hills.”
“You can stop the rambuts, turn them around.”
She grimaced. “To be honest, I’d rather stop the riders.” She unclipped her bow, urged her macai forward at a steady walk, slipped the reins under her knee and rode by balance and thigh-grip alone. Setting the stave on her instep, she strung the bow, tested the pull, drew two arrows from the case by her knee. She frowned at the road ahead, pleased to see several bends as it hugged the side of one mountain and curved against the next. “When they get close enough, if they do, I’ll pick off two of them and damp their enthusiasm a bit.”
“Thought you didn’t like killing.”
“I don’t.” She shrugged. “Mad minarks, no loss to anyone.” She sounded flippant, looked miserable. “Maiden bless, Hern, I’ve killed men before when I had to. And to be honest, I don’t know if I could control the rambuts right now.” She looked down at the arrows in her hand, sighed, dropped them back in their case. “Maybe they won’t catch up.”
The pursuing minarks drew inexorably closer. The steep grades of the road were hard on the already weary macain. They started shuffling, stumbling, gulping in air, wheezing it out, letting their heads hang low. Serroi slid off her mount and was quietly pleased when Hern did the same. They started walking, leading their macain, hearing behind them shouts of triumph from the minarka. They went around one bend then another, then started laboriously up a triply looping switchback. On the third and shortest loop Serroi stopped. She took two arrows from the case by her shoulder then handed the reins to Hern. “Go on ahead, Hern.”
He touched the side of her face. “You sure?”
“Very.” She pointed. “When they come around that bend I’ll have a good clear shot at the leaders. And I can be around there before they can shoot back—if they even have bows. I didn’t see any.” She nodded at the curve behind her.
Hern closed one hand on her shoulder, squeezed it in a wordless expression of fellowship, then began walking away, the macain plodding after him. He was taking short cramped steps, his own strength drained by the long, long day.
Serroi got set, arrow nocked, then eased off stance. She walked back and forth along the short level stretch, afraid her muscles would grow stiff if she stood still too long.
She heard the hooves of the beasts before she saw the riders. Nocking one arrow, holding the other between the last two fingers of her drawing hand, she waited, breathing slowly, steadily, sinking herself into the mindless receptive state she’d labored long to achieve.
Two men came round the bend riding side by side. She pulled, loosed, flipped the second arrow into place, pulled, loosed, then lowered her bow and smiled. The minarks were collapsing off their mounts, arrows lodged in the narrow space between the two sections of chest armor, having sliced neatly through its leather backing. She watched a man crawl hurriedly, nervously, to the bodies and start hauling them back around the bend, then she turned and began walking after Hern.
He was waiting for her around that first turn in the road, sitting on a rock. He got to his feet slowly and stiffly. “Do you ever miss?”
“Not often.” She took the reins of her macai and walked on in silence, unwilling right then to say anything more.
The minarka hung back for over an hour though she knew they were coming still, feeling them like a black fog behind her, stubborn in their malice. Again she chose a place of vantage and waited. This time she dropped only one of them because they were riding in single file and more cautious about coming around bends. Hern and Serroi plodded on, winding up and up through the mountains, reaching the saddle of the pass at the end of another hour.
Hern wiped at his neck with a sodden rag. “Still behind?”
“They expect to catch us at the wall.”
“Wall?”
“There is a wall of sorts up ahead.” She looked back along the trail. The minarka weren’t visible yet but they were creeping up again; she picked up a rising expectation and a touch of anticipation. “I didn’t tell you about the wall?” She frowned, tried to remember but found recent events too hazy to sort out. “About a mile past the saddle. Road goes through a long narrow canyon. Guardhouse with a well. Gate’s usually not barred, they don’t try stopping the Sleykynin, just beat the gong once they’re through.” She started down the long straight incline, stepping carefully over and around the ruts, slanting a glance at Hern. The elegant boots were scuffed, stretched, and beginning to sag at the ankles—far less elegant and far more comfortable than before. But the soles were still thin and slippery; his feet had to be sore and burning. She sighed. Once again she looked back.
A minark stopped at the top of the slope, stared down at them. Another man came up beh
ind him, yelled and beckoned. Serroi dropped the reins and lifted her bow. The minarka scrambled hastily out of sight.
Hern chuckled. “You’ve got them pretty well trained.” He was standing on one foot, leaning against a drooping macai.
She scooped up the dangling reins and slapped her macai on the rump, grimaced at the sorenes of her calves and started down again. “Just as well,” she said. “TheDom’s getting low and the Jewels don’t give much light.” She yawned. “Another hour at least.”
“Walking.” Hern grunted. He looked at the macai pacing beside him. “Walking.”
When they reached the canyon floor the night was very dark, very quiet. The guardhouse was a blotch of darker shadow in the shadow of the wall. Serroi patted her macai’s shoulder. “Hern,” she whispered.
“Mmmh?” The sound came out of the darkness edged with pain and a growing irritation.
“I think they’re sleeping up there.”
“Good for them.”
“I’m not sure, though.” She patted the macai again, remounted. “At least they’re a little rested. They should be able to carry us long enough.” She waited. Hern was a quick-rising blackness. He whooshed as he landed in the saddle, groaned at the pure pleasure of being off his feet.
They reached the gate without a challenge. When Hern bent down to lift the bar, they both heard a long-drawn, whistling snore. “Definitely asleep,” he murmured and swung the gate open with the flat of one hand. The snore turned to a juicy sputtering. As Serroi followed Hern through the gap she heard a confused muttering; it grew louder as the negligent guard thrust his head out an embrasure and looked blearily around. “Who there?” He withdrew his head a moment then thrust his shoulders out, a short throwing spear in one hand. “Get back here, you, or I skewer you.”
Serroi laughed. “You couldn’t hit a mountain with the head you got. Better think about saving your neck,” she yelled at him. “Bar the gate again and tell those following us we must’ve snuck around you somehow.” She kept looking back as the guard lowered the spear and considered her words. When he pulled his head back inside, she chuckled again.
